The Memory of Her
by lost-in-elysium
Summary: A seemingly innocuous conversation with Quill shakes Gamora to the core. One-shot.


**The Memory of Her**

 **A Guardians of the Galaxy Fanfiction**

 **Summary:** A seemingly innocuous conversation with Quill shakes Gamora to the core. One-shot.

 **/!\ Warning(s):** None.

 **A/N:** We apologize for any grammatical/spelling errors in advance. The events of this story precede _Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2_.

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 _Something's up with Quill._

Gamora didn't know what, but intended to find out. The infamous Star-Lord who fired quips better than guns and challenged one of the universe's biggest baddies to a dance-off (and lived to tell about it over, and over, and _over_ again), was fading fast, leaving a leaden silence she ought to appreciate, but loathed. Hopefully the Quill she knew and lo... _liked_ , returned soon.

He hadn't.

His head bobbed to the music from his portable music player or "Walkman" he let her try once, goosebumps erupting and butterflies stirring at the memory of their mingling breaths; his lips inches from hers, tantalizing; his nose caressing her cheek... Her guard had dropped, but she recovered her wits before succumbing to his pelvic sorcery. _The gall of him!_ \- Gamora had nearly slit his throat for muddling her black-and-white feelings into a gray haze.

 _Quill and I are teammates, nothing more._ The Gordian knot of emotions in tightened in her stomach. He was razing the walls of her heart, and unless she fortified her defenses, it would be his if it wasn't already.

Gamora tentatively entered the cockpit, approaching her comrade from behind. "Hey." He startled when she clasped his shoulder, the tempest in his eyes clearing as they descended on her. She unlatched her hand to drape it over the back of his chair while he paused the cassette and slipped off his headphones. "Sorry; I did not mean to frighten you." An involuntary twitch of the lips betrayed her amusement.

"I'm okay." He seemed and sounded the furthest from it.

Her hands were restive birds that alighted on her lap as she sunk into the co-pilot's chair. "Are you really? You seem...out of it lately."

"That obvious, huh?"

Gamora nodded.

He shook his head, eyebrows drawn into a brooding 'V.' "I don't know. I always get like this this time of year. My mother died from cancer when I was eight years old." When Gamora frowned, he said, "It's a disease that causes the cells in your body to grow uncontrollably. The tumor started in her head. They treated her with chemo and radiation. I never understood why - it cost her hair and made her vomit for hours. What was supposed to heal her, hurt her more. Months later, the doctor said it metastasized - spread - to her lungs, bones, liver. No one could save her..." His face crumpled, heart and voice breaking. "Not even me."

He remembered the autumn her golden hair fell with the leaves. Of her clutching her bare head, wailing in agony; of him falling asleep to retching in the bathroom. Of her withering away, cancer carving deep hollows in her cheeks, draining her color, vitality, hope. Of the interminable doctor's appointments and hospital stays, and coming home from school to his mother sprawled on the couch, so sorry for the unmade dinner and other shirked chores left for him to do.

She looked so different, then.

 _"Come here, Star-Lord,"_ Meredith beckoned him toward her with a thin hand, drowning in her hospital gown as he stood, petrified, until Grandpa pushed him forward. He had been afraid of her, his own mother, like the terrors lurking in his closet and beneath the bed.

He never forgave himself.

As a tear trickled down, Gamora's hand darted out at its own volition, but she stopped it from wiping Quill's cheek and looked away. Had he noticed? A surreptitious sidelong glance confirmed he hadn't. Instead, she wistfully watched it drip off his chin. Heart full and mind empty, she frowned at the windshield as the _Milano_ drifted in a stellar sea.

 _This universe does not deserve the ethereal beauty of the stars._

"Quill, it wasn't your fault."

He looked at her. "Then why do I still feel guilty? I was a problem child, and the stress from it all made me act out even more. Maybe...maybe if I hadn't been such a rotten kid, she'd still be here."

"Don't say that, Peter."

The words fell on deaf ears. "I love her so much. I would do anything to get her back. You would think, out of all the worlds I've been to, someone would have figured out how to resurrect the dead but..." He shrugged. "I guess that will always elude us. Maybe it's better that way."

 _I agree._ "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Quill."

"Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault. No one's, I guess." He swiped a hand under his nose, sniffling. "Do you remember her?"

"Who?"

"Your mother?"

"A little. I forgot almost everything about her." Gamora shifted in her seat, hands clenched to quell their tremor as her mother's face, vestiges of a moribund memory, emerged; she squeezed her eyes shut and willed it away. "I remember her smile, and her eyes. But not much more than that. She was taken from me when I was young..."

The corners of his mouth flitted up into a lachrymose smile. "At least we have one thing in common."

Gamora didn't hear him, her mind elsewhere.

"...mora! You alright?"

She gasped, blinking, to find Quill kneeling before her, his hands steadying the quavering fists in her lap, blue eyes piercing like swords. She jerked away and bolted to her feet (as did he), and gravitated toward the door. "I must go."

"You don't have to."

 _I don't want to._ She shuttered the windows to her soul. A tear escaped - _traitor_ \- which she brushed aside with the heel of her hand. "I'm sorry. I don't feel very well. I think...I think I should lie down."

"I didn't mean -"

" _It's fine."_ Her tone cut deep. "I'm fine." Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she about-faced and marched out the cockpit, a taut rope one fiber away from snapping.

"Gamora!" He gingerly seized her by the wrist. She whipped around with a screech, hand poised for the strike that never came. Here they were again, so close their chests could touch with a simultaneous breath, but the mood, unlike before, was Stygian dark. She stood stockstill, held captive by Quill's eyes, bound to his will, and the utter powerlessness she felt once crept over again. He hadn't cast a spell...he _was_ it.

Worry creased his brow. "Why are you fighting this?" He wound his finger around a sable tendril that recoiled after he released it.

"That is all I know." The dragging silence and Star-Lord's probing gaze drove her to the brink of madness. "Quill, let me go." _Please._

He did reluctantly, and Gamora walked away, ignoring a hunch she made a mistake. Every time Peter got close, she pushed him away. _It's better like that._

Her boots clanged against metallic rungs as she descended the ladder.

 _What is wrong with me?_ Gamora crumpled onto her cot, the torrent of tears soaking her cheeks and pillow as they fell for Quill, herself, their mothers. For her victims whose throats she slit, necks she snapped, and backs she stabbed without flinching, and for her adversaries who wouldn't relent until she met her long overdue demise. In the pits of the galaxy, longevity was enjoyed by the (un)fortunate few.

 _Trust. A fascinating thing, that._ How it took aeons to establish, and seconds to annihilate, impervious like steel or as tenuous as the single horsehair suspending Damocles' sword.

She bit her knuckles to stifle sobs, welcoming the pain of splitting skin, the burst of blood. She should have died alongside her mother, but if she had, Quill, a talking raccoon, a sentient tree, Drax the Destroyer - her surrogate family - would be lost to oblivion.

After her abduction, Gamora learned very quickly not to love; Thanos had seen to that. He forged her into a ruthless assassin with ice for blood and a heart of stone. _If one did not love, one need never know of pain,_ he inculcated in her - words she questioned as of late.

 _Weak._ A purple face, warped by scorn, swam before her mind's eye. Shame burned her cheeks and dried her tears. _How dare I cry?_ The only love is for the self. Love for another softened the heart, mind, and soul...a chink in the armor one could thrust a blade into and she'd be finished, a kismet Gamora didn't object to, but wasn't prepared to meet. Not yet.

 _I must finish what Thanos started, even if it kills me._

 _The End_

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 **A/N:** Thanks for reading! Please feel free to let us know what you think on your way out...We accept and value all feedback.


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